A page fault (sometimes #pf or pf) is a trap to the software raised by the hardware when a program accesses a page that is mapped in the virtual address space, but not loaded in physical memory. In the typical case the operating system tries to handle the page fault by making the required page accessible at a location in physical memory or kills the program in the case of an illegal access. The hardware that detects a page fault is the memory management unit in a processor. The exception handling software that handles the page fault is generally part of the operating system.
Contrary to what the name 'page fault' might suggest, page faults are not always errors and are common and necessary to increase the amount of memory available to programs in any operating system that utilizes virtual memory, including Microsoft Windows, Unix-like systems (including Mac OS X, Linux, *BSD, Solaris, AIX, and HP-UX), and z/OS. Microsoft uses the term hard fault in more recent versions of the Resource Monitor (e.g., Windows Vista) to mean 'page fault'.
Read more about Page Fault: Handling Illegal Accesses and Invalid Page Faults, Performance
Famous quotes containing the words page and/or fault:
“So here they are, the dog-faced soldiers, the regulars, the fifty-cents-a-day professionals riding the outposts of the nation, from Fort Reno to Fort Apache, from Sheridan to Stark. They were all the same. Men in dirty-shirt blue and only a cold page in the history books to mark their passing. But wherever they rode and whatever they fought for, that place became the United States.”
—Frank S. Nugent (1908–1965)
“What’s this, what’s this? Is it her fault or mine?
The tempter, or the tempted, who sins most, ha?”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)